Connecticut State Department of Public Health

Beginning Nov. 20, 2023, every U.S. household can again place an order to receive four more free COVID-19 rapid tests delivered to their home by visiting COVIDTests.gov. If you did not order tests this fall, you may place two orders for a total of eight tests. Additionally, before you discard any “expired” test kits you have, please check here to see if the expiration dates of your COVID-19 tests have been extended.

Health Systems Planning

On July 1, 2018, the Office of Health Care Access (OHCA) was consolidated within the Office of Health Strategy as the Health Systems Planning Unit to continue and enhance health systems planning. The HSP Unit will continue to have statutory authority to gather and analyze specified hospital financial, billing and discharge data such as hospital expenses and revenues, uncompensated care volumes, hospital utilization, demographic, clinical, charge, payer and provider statistics.

The unit’s major functions are to:

  • Administer the certificate of need (CON) program to promote appropriate development of health facilities and services that addresses a public need. The CON program strives to ensure accessibility for needed services while limiting duplication or excess capacity of facilities and services;
  • Prepare the Statewide Health Care Facilities and Services Plan;
  • Collect and analyze health care data and issue reports including the biennial utilization study; and
  • Review hospital financial information and issue reports including an annual acute care hospital financial stability report. 

For more information, please visit https://portal.ct.gov/OHS/Services/Health-Systems-Planning